Book Of Revelations

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Book of Revelations

When will the end come? It is human nature for humans to ask questions. Many of these questions are without answers and there is no possible way to come up with one. A common question that plagues the human race is “When will the world end?” For thousands of years, astrologers and psychics have been trying to come up with clues to when it all will end. There is a source, the Bible, which aids humans, specifically Christians, in trying to come up with some answers. Many places in the Bible such as Revelations, Ezekiel, Matthew, Daniel, and I Corinthians all give some clues to how and when the end of the world will come. Two articles that give some insight on this subject are “Visions or Heaven, Dreams of the End” by Barbara E. Bowe and “Are We Living at the End Time?” by Alfred McBride and O. Praem. These articles help to aid us with the answers to such questions as: How will the end time happen? Does the Bible tell more of a symbolic happening or are all of those horrible things going to happen? They also give details and hints that happen all over the Bible, such as the number seven. In the article “ Are We Living at the End Time,” authors McBride and Praem look at the end time from a millenarian’s perspective and backs up their claims with the Bible. Instead of using the Church’s four end time happenings: death, judgement, heaven and hell, the millenarian uses it’s own four criteria: Rapture, tribulation, millennium, and the Second Coming. Looking at these questions in a theological way, by asking questions, the authors make these four criteria easier to understand (McBride & Pream, 58). The first question asked is “When will we experience Rapture?” The millenarian looks specifically at Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians and to the Corinthians. In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, he uses imagery to describe to them what Rapture will be like when Christ returns. He tells the Thessalonians in 1Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we’ll be with the Lord forever.” (New International Version) This is what millenarians call the Rapture ...

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..., John speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. This vision was not at all new, as its mentioned in Isa. 65:17. This vision is available to the reader to make a future for their world. He describes the new heaven and the new earth as a place with no evils, filled with the presence of God. The new earth in Revelations is not some burning fire pit with poison spitting animals, but a place of paradise. The author then goes to say that this was the view that we should all have had for the millennium. This is the view that I have always had for the end time. I am not one to sit around and be scared. I am so excited to meet my God in his paradise. Unlike the millenarian in the first article, I could really care less when or how I get to be there with him. The whole purpose of this paper was to come up with an answer to when the end time would be. However, I think through reading both of these article, I have come to find out in my mind, that no one knows but God. It is pointless to sit around and wonder if this 10-horned beast, rode by a past prostitute, is going to fall out of heaven in the end time. What I think is more important is making yourself ready for the coming of the end time.

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